Brief Book Reviews: Notes from Underground (1864) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was sent in internment in 1840’s Tsarist Russia. He awaited his execution for years in Siberia, then at the last moment he was spared. Spending 4 more years in Siberia and another 6 in military exile; no wonder that by the 1860s, in his 40’s he had seen more than most of us would see in our lifetimes.
Dostoyevsky was on my to-read list for some time now. I read Crime and Punishment years ago, but I abandoned it in the middle. Please don’t take this as a reflection on the novel. I think it’s still the best thing I have ever read. Definitely much more gripping than anything else. I was just very busy then and once a significant time passed without me picking up my kindle, I realized I would rather read it again at my leisure when I have the luxury of time. We time came in 2021. But this time rather than resuming Crime and Punishment I decided to go with Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground.
The novella is something that I could relate to instantly. It’s so surreal and gripping from the first line only, when he says “I am a sick man…”; aren’t we all? I thought. From the first line, it was a dialectic read, but very soon I shut my analyzing mind and started taking it all in. I was amazed by the depth of psyche that Dostoyevsky takes the reader to. The “Underground Man” — oh how much I empathize with the anti-hero of the book.
The “Underground” is so relatable. His detachment to society, calling them “them” as if they are from a different species, and his complete disdain for the functioning world that has denied him of his individuality and his meaning in life is something that any self-aware man/woman can relate to.
In the first part of the novella, he basically digs deep and reaches the bottom of the individual loneliness that every human being is suffering from. That loneliness is what he is confined to in the corner of his cell. The “Underground Man” is condemned to suffer alone with his burden of past, the fears that had gripped him since youth, that chain him, his mind, his actions and suffocate his self-respect and deny him of his dignity. He hates his virtue. He understands the truth of it, but he sees no value in being virtuous. No wonder Dostoyevsky is relevant even now. He basically burns the bridges rather than bridging the gaps. He is the opposite of the virtue-signaling novelists and writers.
I won’t spoil the second part, but in “Apropos of the Wet Snow” when The Underground Man cries out “They — they won’t let me — I — I can’t be good!” to the prostitute. It just right there sums up the whole book for me. This one sentence hits the nail on the abso-fucking-lutely head.
I gained so much from reading this book. I didn’t discover anything new; I discovered the depths and beauty of what I had discovered a few years ago. The writing is a reinforcement of what I had in my mind, but the neurotic and at times psychotic nature of the Underground Man really kept me on the edge. It’s like the personification of the greatest Nietzschian work. Fyodor actually personified the psyche of billions of suffering people throughout history and the times to come. Now I know what the fuss was about. It really is a tremendous work of writing. He touched the universal suffering of being a human being and that’s what keeps his work alive. This gives me an insight into his thinking and his general world view which could be called disdainful at the least.
I think I would again come back to this book in some time. It’s worth re-reading multiple times.
Somehow I feel this novella subliminally says more than the works of well-acclaimed writers and psychologists. This Underground is very real and it’s all-pervasive to anyone who respects his suffering.
To me, the crux of what Fyodor was saying is that the human psyche is very fragile, so brittle that it absolutely shatters when it trembles. A very well put together man can crumble and break down like a hill of beans at any moment.
This is kind of what happens to Patrick Bateman in “The American Psycho”.
I’ll read it again in few years! Four out of Five Stars!